


Progression

by agentM40



Series: Aftermath [2]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Gen, mentions of Clover, mentions of Harriet, mentions of Ironwood, technically there are some OCs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:01:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22698292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentM40/pseuds/agentM40
Summary: An expanse on my last story 'Impacts.' You should probably read that first.Marrow is in charge of bringing Qrow his meals while he's in captivity. They talk sometimes.Trigger warning for vomiting (again. Because the first chapter of this and the last story take place at the same time)
Relationships: Marrow Amin & Qrow Branwen
Series: Aftermath [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1626544
Comments: 22
Kudos: 58





	1. Caged bird

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't mention this in the first part, but I'm basically just ignoring that Salem's supposed to be charging in on a giant flying whale.  
> Also, I'm not sure this is as good as my last fic so... maybe don't hold your expectations super high if you've read the last one.

Qrow had no agency in trying to escape. He knew team RWBY had escaped, so he didn't need to worry about them. All he wanted to do now was mourn the death of his... Could they have been considered friends? They'd grown somewhat close, at least, and he'd referred to him as a friend; but that was only as a way to try to get him to back down. He'd used several manipulative tactics then. It didn't matter if they were friends or not. You don't need to be friends with someone for their death to affect you immensely.

He was allowed to be upset about it. He could stand to sulk for a little while. He'd known Ironwood for a long time, and he seemed to be putting off dealing with him. Seems old Jimmy had grown attached. He'd probably deny it. Maybe he just had bigger things to worry about. Like trying to capture everyone else. Who knows? If team RWBY could beat the Ops once they could do it again. He wasn't too worried about them. Plus they'd joined up with the rest of the group, and Penny, apparently; from what he'd overheard. He wasn't worried about them. They'd do fine.

For now he would let himself mope. He'd been constantly running around, stressing about time for the past several years. Not only did he need time to mourn, but now seemed the best time to wait. Strategically speaking, now was a good time to wait for the right time to do what he needed to. It didn't hurt that it was really convenient for him.

The first few days he mainly just moped around his cell. Well, not so much ‘around’, as sitting in one place, starring at the same place on the floor. He soon, however, found his imprisonment gave him a lot more to wonder about than he'd expected. Most days Marrow would bring breakfast in well after he woke up, but one of the days—a few days into his capture—his first meal of the day was delivered before he'd even woken up. Long before he'd woken up. The food was cold. Not that it was usually hot and steamy, but it was clear that it had been sitting out for an hour or so. He'd wondered why that was. Maybe it was just that different days required doing jobs at different times than others. That seemed wrong somehow. The ace-ops wouldn't be out doing things as trivial as holding off grimm. The stuff they do are scheduled. Which made it so weird that his meals either came on time, or way too early.

At first he'd thought some days the just started earlier, but the days were inconsistent, and it also didn't make any sense to do that. They never did that when he was on their side either. Why would they start now. It was still a theory, but he doubted it was correct. Speaking of his time back on their side, if he had to choose one of the Ops that he'd say was the most carefree, possibly excluding Clover... it would be Marrow, and he had the fortune of Marrow being the person to bring his meals down. He wondered why he was the only one to do so. He was glad though. He figured Marrow would be a good way to get some answers. Especially with such minuscule questions. He wasn't asking about what Ironwood plans to do now. He already knew that anyways.

"Hey, how come sometimes I wake up and my foods already cold," he finally asked one day.

"Who cares?" He turned to leave again. Ok, Qrow hadn't been expecting that. Not from Marrow, at least.

"'Ey!" Marrow stopped in his tracks. "I care. I'm the one who got cold food this morning!"

"Some days we train earlier than other days."

"Seriously? That's it? I've been wondering about this for-" He thought for a second. "How long have I been here anyway?"

"Eleven days. Now if you'll excuse me, you're not the only one who needs a meal right now." He left. That didn't go nearly as well as he was hoping for. Or expecting.

* * *

"So how's your team been doin' with everything going on," he asked one day, out of boredom.

"Fine I guess," he answered. "Why do you care?"

"Well, your leader just died- for one." Qrow narrowed his eyes. "I'd have thought you wouldn't be fine."

"We have to be professional."

"If having emotions is unprofessional, then James' paranoia is leaving him _very_ unprofessional."

"I don't think paranoia is technically an emotion."

"Whatever. But you wouldn't think I'd be more upset over Clover's death than his own team. At least _I_ didn't." He was starting to get angry. Clover's team didn't care that he'd died? Clover seemed prepared to kill him if necessary in their last interaction and he still cared; even though they'd only known each other for a couple of weeks, tops.

"You miss Clover?"

"We got to know each other pretty well in the short amount of time we had. I honestly find it hard to believe anyone could _not_ miss him. He's a pretty easy guy to get along with."

"I want to miss him, I just-" He paused, looking down. "I don't have time to think about it too much." He looked back up to Qrow. "I have a job to do."

"You can afford to bring me food everyday, but can't afford to _think_ about the death of someone you used to spend every day with?"

"I mean... mourning specifically consumes your mind pretty... just, a lot, and with the grimm it's best to avoid that. Especially with my job. It's best to avoid any issues like that."

"So you're just gonna avoid thinking about it? What, forever?" There was a pause.

"I don't know. I'll just have to wait and see I guess."

* * *

"So, what's taking Jimmy so long to deal with me? Is he trying to get the rest of the group first, or is he too busy looking for someone to replace Clover's position on your team?" He said it with as much passive aggression as he could inflict. He found the idea that someone would go to replace a person—especially if it's because they'd died—sickening. He wanted to make that clear. Given the situation they were in, maybe it would have been smart to make the team whole again, but Qrow still wanted to spit in Iroonwood's face for it.

"We aren't looking for a new ace op."

"Seriously? You'd think that would be a pretty high priority. A lot's goin’ on. Wouldn't you need a full team?"

"The team had _always_ been four until recently. Have you ever heard of any _other_ team with five members?"

"Ok. So why did you ever have five members then?"

"Everyone kind of hates Ironwood right now, so he started doing a bunch of little things to try to appeal to as many demographics as he could."

"What demographic does a fifth Ace-Op appeal to?"

"Progressives," he answered, shifting his tail to be in Qrow's line of vision.

"Wait. So the only reason you're an Op is because Ironwood wanted a faunus on his team to appeal to progressives?"

"Pretty much."

"And that doesn't bother you?"

"You think it doesn't?"

* * *

"Hey. I'm bored," he said. "Do you have anything I could do while I'm just stuck in here?"

"Do you have to do this right now?"

"I was gonna ask this morning, but I woke up to cold food again."

"Well I hope you know that whenever you keep me here you take away from my lunch time."

"Yeah? What's 60 seconds of going without food gonna do to you?"

"It's more of my eating time than you'd think. Mostly because where I eat is pretty far from here."

"Well could you ask Ironwood if I could get something to do while I'm down here?"

"I'm not gonna do that." Qrow couldn't tell you one way or another whether he did ask Ironwood, but the next tray that Marrow brought down had a rubber ball hidden under the cup, which was upside down. He didn't get any water that night, but he didn't need a whole lot of it, given that he was just sitting in one place all day.

* * *

“I assume this is from you,” Qrow said, presenting the rubber ball between his thumb and middle finger.

“I _am_ the only one who comes down here.”

“I honestly didn’t expect my badgering to get me anything. I’m not usually that lucky. Especially since you’re supposed to hate me.”

“I’m not ‘ _supposed to hate you._ ’ You…” he glanced down. “You’re all nice to me. I’m not supposed to hate you, but I do _need_ to hate you,” he attempted to correct. “Wait-no. Scratch that. That doesn’t make sense.” He thought about it for a second. “I hate you professionally, but personally you seem ok. The general seems pretty convinced that you… that you killed Clover. But the jury's still out as far as I’m convinced. Apparently you guys got close, or whatever- and that’s only according to you, so it might not be the best source, but seeing as you were traveling with a well known serial killer who has, now, escaped I think you have a case. Plus Robyn was unconscious while… whatever happened… happened… but she’s pretty convinced you didn’t do it.”

“Huh. ‘Hate me professionally, but not personally.’ You can seperate those?”

“It’s pretty easy. You seem like good people, but everyone thinks they’re doing the right thing. Well, most people, anyway.”

“What if you’re the one doing the wrong thing?”

“I’m still thinking about it.”

* * *

"I got cold food again this morning," he said, repeatedly bouncing the ball of the walls to catch it.

"Yeah, you know there's really nothing I can do about that, right? Out of the two of us, I'm probably put at more of an inconvenience at waking up as early as I do."

"Ok, then tell Ironwood that I've been complaining about it."

"Yeah I don't think he's going to override a bunch of stuff just to make you comfortable. Maybe you used to be friends, but I seriously doubt he considers you one anymore."

"Yeah, but you—apparently—don't want to wake up early. This way you have an excuse to try to get him to get him to stop by starting with the fact that _I've_ been complaining. Say I've been buggin' you about it." Marrow sighed.

"I'm not gonna do that. Besides, Ironwoods not-" He stopped himself mid-sentence, and his facial expression quickly transformed into an almost fearful one.

"Uh... _Hello_? -Oh my god!" He scrambled up and got as close to him as the cell would allow, as vomit shot out of Morrow's mouth. "Are you ok?" Marrow just stood there, bent slightly over, covering his mouth and trying to catch his breath.

"Shit..." He ran back up the stairs and out the door before soon coming back with a mop, bucket, and disposable bag. He immediately started scooping up the vomit with the bag.

"Don't you have people working under you? Can't you get them to do that? If you're sick you should really be in bed, or something." Marrow tied the bag after getting all he could into, and grabbed the mop.

"I'm not sick."

"That bag says otherwise." He gestured at it with his head. "You should talk to Ironwood—or Harriet— or whoever it is you go to, and ask to take a day off." Marrow was done with the mop by the time he finished talking. He didn't respond. He just rolled his eyes and walked away.

* * *

Dinner the same day. Marrow seemed tired and off balance.

"Did you-"

"No." He was fast to start leaving, clearly hoping to get out of having to talk about it.

"Marrow. Seriously." He stopped, right before the stairs. "You can't just power through like that. _Maybe_ you could say that as a huntsman, with a strong aura, you can get through a sickness, but that doesn't extend to also doing huntsman duties. You shouldn't be overexerting yourself. That goes for anyone." Marrow didn't stay to say anything back.

* * *

Breakfast the next day was, thankfully, not an early breakfast day, and Marrow. After pushing the food through the one slit in the bars that was horizontal and putting the barrier back up between said bars, Marrow just stood there.

"You want something," Qrow asked. Marrow took a deep breath.

"Look, I'm gonna get so much shit if the other's find out, but I wanted to apologize for yesterday."

"What? For being irritable?" He made sure to say it lightly to indicate he was joking.

"No, I wanted to apologize for throwing up in front of you. That was unprofessional." Qrow felt his face contort in anger as he stood up.

"Are you serious?" Marrow seemed to sink into himself, if only just a little. Qrow made a conscious attempt to relax his face and body language. "Marrow, people get sick. It's not any fault of their own."

"I wasn't sick."

"Then what was that?"

"I wasn't sick! I just hadn't eaten breakfast!" There was a pause.

"You were doing heavy duty huntsman work on an empty stomach?"

"Coming down here takes a lot out of my eating time, and on days when we wake up at three AM I'm tired and slow. I don't have time. It's fine though."

"Were you able to get lunch yesterday, with cleaning that up and everything?"

"Oh, no. I missed that too. But-"

"Oh my god!"

"...Wh-"

"Go eat something," he yelled, pointing at the staircase. If there was a way to point aggressively, he did. Marrow jumped at that, and ran up the stairs.

"Stupid... _stubborn_ kid."

* * *

That day at lunch, Qrow made sure not to say anything, and gathered up his questions for when He came down to deliver dinner.

"You guys still quit training for the day after dinner, right?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Because I don't have to worry about keeping you from anything."

"Aww, you worry about me?" It was a joke, but Qrow wasn't amused, and—seeing this—Marrow seemed to grow embarrassed for having made it; and cleared his throat, uncomfortably. "I-I mean, I don't want to imply, one way or another, what you thi-"

"Marrow. If you're not getting enough food, you should talk to Ironwood about it."

"Sorry." He formed an X with his arms. "No can do." He was joking, and trying to make it seem like a non-issue, but his drooping tail was quite a tell.

"Yeah? Why's that?"

"Meals are categorized as personal responsibility,” he said, matter of factly. “Requesting to put a personal responsibility over a mandatory one is out of the question."

"Then on early mornings, you can eat my breakfast. I don't even care. I don't need the energy for anything."

"I can't do that! That would be putting my personal life ahead of my job."

"So, fucking, what?" He was back to yelling.

"I can't afford to lose my job! I'm only here because I'm a faunus, so I'm on thin ice, and if I fail that sets _all_ faunus back!" Qrow stared at him in shock and even Marrow seemed taken aback by his own outburst, before turning and running back up the stairs. Well damn. The kid had sound motivations.

* * *

He tried not to distract Marrow after that, to save him time.

The next time Qrow woke up to find his food had already been delivered was a few days later, and Qrow found himself relieved that there was only half the food on his tray than usual. He just wished he'd woken to an empty tray. He'd had jobs that required the same levels of physical exertion, and they were no walk in the park. The more energy the better.

* * *

One day he woke up to a full tray. This... concerned him, to say the least. His concern only increased when his lunch got delivered later that day by Elm. He knew by now what Marrow’s footsteps sounded like, and when they sounded stronger he made sure to hide the ball he’d been using as a minor form of entertainment. He still didn’t know if he was technically supposed to have it. She did not seem pleased with the arrangement. His concerns were soon put to rest midway through her rant about being ' _reduced to this_.'

"What did you say to him," she asked angrily. "It had to be you. Marrow's only priority has always been to follow the general's orders."

"He left?"

"Don't act like you don't know!" Qrow chuckled.

"Well. Good for him."

"You mean good for _you_. You and the rest of your group are the only ones who benefit from this."

"Yeah? If he'd stuck around, who would that benefit? Just you and your group. Right?"

"What we're doing. Benefits everyone. We're trying to save the world!"

"So are we. It's just that me and you have different ideas about what that means. So what? Did Marrow leave a note or anything?"

"He didn't leave anything! He just left!"

"Are you serious? Why are you yelling at me? For all you know he was captured by someone." Elm stopped and seemed to think about it for a second.

"Well there's only one group of people I could think of with the skill and motivation to pull that off," she said accusatorily.

"Well, I wouldn't have the access to have anything to do with it if _they_ did. So how about you go ' _do your duty_ ,' or whatever, and get off my back." After a few moments she went off in a huff.

* * *

The next time she came down she seemed much more single minded, with the sole intent of delivering the food and leaving. Attempting to leave. Before she was interrupted.

"What? You don't have any extra comebacks for me?"

"I don't have time to talk to you."

"Wow. _Really_ ? Did you have time to _eat_?" She didn’t seem to pick up on his sarcasm.

"Mostly, but Harriet extended my eating time for the time I missed."

"Course she did." Elm seemed confused by this response, before heading up the stairs.

He had decided the best time to escape would be sometime after the previous week, but after Marrow revealed his motivations, his concern held him back. Now that staying wouldn't help any—whether Marrow was in a better situation or a worse one—now would be a good time to leave.

When Elm let down the barrier between the bars down, Qrow shifted into his bird form and shot through the gap, leaving a very confused Elm.


	2. Lost Dog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marrow has left the Ace Ops. What lead up to that? And now what is he supposed to do?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to thank everyone who's left comments. It really helped motivate me to get through this one.

It was easier not to think about the fact that they’d left a city to die. It was easier in the sense that they could ignore any guilt they would have felt about it, but also that it was hard to picture the death of all of Mantle. At least, it was for Marrow, but maybe that was because he’d grown up there. He knew so many people down there, and it was hard to believe that they would all be gone. The others had all grown up in Atlas. Maybe that meant that they had a hard time grasping the fact that these were even people.

According to the officials monitoring the surrounding areas, Mantle was still standing, somehow. It wasn’t a bad thing—obviously—but it was baffling all the professionals. Ignoring grimm all together, the whole city should have frozen over by now. It didn’t, though. Good.

Marrow had a theory, but he tended to get shut down and reprimanded, so he kept it to himself. Ever the village idiot. “ _Dog brain_.” He always seems to be wrong. He thought they were doing the wrong thing, so they must be doing the right thing. Right? They were doing the right thing. They had to be. If they weren’t that would mean…

He needed to see his mom. He needed to make sure she was ok. Plus, he needed her for his own comfort. He needed her to tell him he was doing the right thing, or at least his best.

Using an airship would get him caught pretty fast, but he would need to use one on the way back. Luckily Ironwood had been a little too hasty in his decision to raise Atlas, and so there were still some things they needed before they’d be completely self sustaining. Airships were often coming and leaving to make sure that self sustainability would be possible. He could fall from Atlas to Mantle. It would be higher than he was used to, but he’d have more openings to slow down than normal. He’d want to take off as soon as it wouldn’t be suspicious for him to not be around. That shouldn’t be hard. He’s mostly been holing himself up in his room lately, so they wouldn’t be looking for him as long as he left after dinner, and he would just need to come back before three AM at the earliest. Yeah, that’s what he’d do.

* * *

The walk to the edge of Atlas was longer than he’d anticipated. The only time he’d ever gone to the edge of the city was in an airship. The wall was also taller than he’d estimated from the view he’d gotten from the airships he’s flown in. He couldn’t scale up the wall, but there was a building close enough to it that was almost as tall as it, and he was able to maneuver his way over, once he’d scaled the building, which was possible, as there were several ledges for windows and things.

Marrow hadn’t predicted how thin the air would be once he breached the artificial atmosphere of Atlas. His head almost immediately felt almost tight, as a pressure started building up from the bottom of his skull. Luckily, falling was a fast way to travel, and it didn’t take long to regain his breath.

The fall was incredible, and he felt his tail start to wag. Something he and Elm had in common was how they loved the way falling could feel like flying if you were doing it for long enough. If he had to be a faunus, why couldn’t he have been a bird? Or a bat! Something with wings.

He was able to slow his fall with the buildings, but hitting the ground still caused his aura to flicker. He’d definitely beat his own record for farthest fall. He needed to pick up the pace. He had less time than he’d expected, since Atlas was bigger than he’d thought. If he didn’t try to keep his mind off of it, he could hear his body telling him to stop. It still hurt from the fall. It was the kind of hurt that didn’t have a center. His whole body had suddenly stopped moving, so the pain rang through his whole body. Just ignore it.

* * *

“Marrow? What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to make sure you were ok.”

“Oh, yes we’re all doing fine. You don’t need to worry.”

“Ok.” They stood in silence for a few seconds. “It’s warmer than it should be,” he said curiously.

“Marrow, I think you should go.” He stared at her, shocked. ‘ _What_?’ “Look, I don’t know the larger picture like you probably do, so I can’t say for sure what’s going on, but everyone is pretty upset with Ironwood, so I think it would be best for you to go back-before anyone sees you.” ‘ _But I just got here. I haven’t seen you in months_.’

“Ok. I understand. I’ll go back.” She smiled at him, relieved.

“I knew you would. That’s why I love you.”

“I love you too, mom.”

* * *

He was halfway over to where he knew airships would be landing and taking off when he realized. He still had plenty of time. He’d wanted to talk to his mom, and since that hadn’t happened, he had extra time. He could find team RWBY and ask how Mantle was thriving. If they had something to do with that, he could thank them. If he did run into them, telling them Qrow was ok might be a good idea. Chances were when he got back he’d be able to tell Qrow they say hi or something. That all is, assuming they’d even let him get a word in. No. They had always been understanding. Even if they didn’t immediately trust him, they’d let him speak, at least.

He didn’t really know where he would start, so he just wondered around for a while. There were still grimm coming in constantly. Many of the huntsmen from the city were holding them off. Marrow just had to find one of them—of team RWBY or JNR. They were probably split up to cover more ground, and probably had certain watches seeing someone would need to be fighting late into the night. He had no doubt that they wouldn’t be staying just to protect mantle from the oncoming grimm, who were always trying to find the relics. Now there were two together, right above Mantle’s head.

A couple times he’d run into other huntsmen who were taking down some grimm. They didn’t react well to seeing him, knowing who he is, and his position in the military. Mostly they just threw insults at him and/or ignored all of his questions. That was fine. He didn’t need their help to find team RWBY and the rest. There were a lot of them, fighting grim puts you out in the open, Penny as the protector of mantle should be easy to spot, and given that they knew everything, they were probably heading the defense against the grimm. It just might take a while, since Mantle’s so big.

* * *

It was getting late. He initially wanted to be back by three AM in order to definitely be there by the earliest time Harriet would start training, but he still hadn’t found any of the people he was hoping to. So he decided to extend his visit. After all, he wanted to be in by the earliest he might be woken, but that morning had been an early day, so he was sure the next day wouldn’t be. He just had to be back before five. It would be fine.

* * *

It had been getting late. He could still make it back. The issue laid more with the fact that it had been well over 24 hours since he’d slept. That had been the issue before. Before the issue turned into him waking up under a bridge hours later. Shit.

* * *

He couldn’t go back now. He’d dug a hole he couldn’t climb out of. The longer he thought about it the more he realized he didn’t really want to find RWBY’s group. Well, maybe a little, but mostly he was just stalling. He didn’t want to go back to Atlas. As far as he was concerned, Ironwood had all but killed everyone he knew. He couldn’t go back to that.

It was now pretty evident that the only thing he could do was find RWBY’s group, whether he wanted to or not. He still wasn’t sure whether he wanted to. He thought so, but he still found himself dreading that encounter. Weird. He wished he’d given a little more forethought on this decision. He could have told Qrow he was coming down here, and maybe he’d have something to tell the team. They were a family; two of them literally. Qrow would want to tell them something, and Marrow should have checked.

* * *

On the first day he found that his card was declining meal purchases, and his scroll had been deactivated. Great. Luckily he’d brought some lien with him. He’d only brought it on a whim, but he was so glad he had. Not that it would last very long. He hadn’t brought very much, but he had at least enough to get him through that first day. It was really convenient that the cheaper places tended to be faunus inclusive. He needed to save as much money as possible.

As it turned out, his efforts to save his money didn’t last very long, as by the second day he didn’t have enough to buy anything. He didn’t expect to need any money, so the fact that he’d brought even a little was a miracle. A short lived miracle.

“Hey, aren’t you that new faunus Ace Operative.” He turned his head to look at the man speaking to him, holding back his grown, but not his glare. “What are _you_ doing down _here_?” Marrow sighed.

“I’m not an Ace Op anymore. I left.”

“Oh yeah? You tuck your tail and run?” Marrow felt himself stiffen as the man laughed at his own joke.

“I’m not running from anything. There’s nothing up there to run from. I came here to help everyone down here.”

“We’re doing fine. No thanks to you.”

“Well, that’s why I’m here.” The man scoffed before pushing his way past Marrow. A literal push as he shoulder checked him. Marrow had to roll his eyes at the man’s attempt at a confrontation.

It was pretty surprising how many—very similar—interactions he had throughout the rest of that first day. Most of the time they would take one look at fetch, remember that he was on the most elite squad in Atlas and back down, but sometimes he’d need to verbally remind them of his previous status.

* * *

Without money, he wasn’t able to eat that day. The familiar pang of hunger entered much more slowly than during the intense training with the Ace Ops, even if he was met with a fair share of grimm. He was almost proud when he made it through the day, and to sleep without vomiting.

Only to wake up three hours into said sleep to empty his stomach.

Dammit.

He never got back to sleep.

Normally he would be able to get through it. It could be fine. He’d always been able to fill up later. Not this time. He needed to figure something out. Soon.

* * *

It would be an understatement to say he struggled the third day. Grimm were in a constant influx, and he was growing increasingly more exhausted by the minute. His strikes were slow, sloppy, and unbalanced. At some point during the third day he was getting overpowered by the grimm. Barely able to hold his own, he eventually started getting taken down by a manticore. The last one of that pack. He’d managed to take down every other one, but he couldn’t keep it up forever.

The manticore knocked him to the ground and fetch was knocked across the ground, away from him. Then the manticore caught fire. Marrow found himself panting, trying to catch his breath, as the manticore dissolved into thin air.

“Stand up.” It was Weiss. “Slowly.” She spoke slowly. Suspicion flowing through her voice, and her weapon raised, pointed directly at him. He was shocked to see her. Two days he actively searched for any of them, and the next day he just set out to survive, and one of them found him. “ _Now_ ,” she emphasized. He complied with a sigh, putting his hands up in a gesture of peace.

She called Nora out—who was apparently just around the building—and gestured over to fetch with a nod of her head. Nora took fetch and rested it on her shoulder like a baseball bat. It made him uncomfortable to see how casually she was handling his weapon.

“Are all of you down here,” Nora asked him, as she walked back to Weiss, who was still holding her defensive pose.

“Just me,” he answered. Weiss let out a hum of acknowledgement—or maybe suspicion—before leaning over slightly to speak to Nora.

“Call for backup,” she told her.

* * *

Qrow had only been out of his cell, and down in Mantle for a day or so. He was quick to find the group, as his bird form made the search easy. Ruby was particularly ecstatic at his arrival. Her and everyone else was glad to see he was ok, given not knowing what happened to him after the call for their arrest. Apparently they'd all convened at a friend of Pietro's for a few days, before Robyn was released; which had been a few weeks ago by now. Now they were living with her, and had all the Happy Huntresses on their team and willing to help. Unfortunately—with how things were going—the only goal they had then and there was to keep Mantle alive. They didn't have time to do anything about the general and Atlas then.

"We _might_ have a problem," Nora said through his scroll. "If anyone's nearby, we could use some backup." Nora and Weiss had been patrolling together, and—after checking the map on his scroll—he saw their two blips nearby.

"Looks like I'm the closest," he responded. "I'll be there in a minute." They weren't exactly right around the corner, and saying they were 'nearby' was really a relative term, so he transformed into his bird form for the travel. Once he got to the general area, he had to transform back to get the exact location. Pulling out his scroll he checked for their blips. The scrolls were all connected so that it would capture everyone's location on the map. The map was zoomed out in order to capture everyone, so Qrow's blip was practically on top of the other two. Unless he wanted to delete the other's from the roster, he'd just need to wonder around and try to find them.

He pocketed the scroll with a sigh, before jogging around the area, keeping his eyes peeled. It didn't take long to find them. As he rounded the corner, he didn't know what to expect. When he saw Marrow his immediate first thought was 'You're right, this could be a problem. Just not in the way you might expect.' He also had to acknowledge to himself how weird it was to see Marrow out of uniform and with his hair down; which was longer than he expected, just reaching the edge of his shoulder blades. At the same time he was flooded with relief at the sight of him. All he knew was that Marrow suddenly wasn't in Atlas anymore, and when he found his nieces, he didn't find Marrow with them. He'd honestly expected to.

When Marrow saw Qrow his reaction seemed more like shock, which quickly morphed into something more somber. It was hard to place exactly what emotion it was just by looking, but he looked at the ground and his whole body slumped.

It was clear that Weiss and Nora's concern was that Marrow would try to stop everything they'd all worked for. Qrow, on the other hand, didn't feel that he needed to worry about it. He knew where his mind had been as of late. It was enough. He let out a light chuckle, and gestured to Weiss to lower her weapon as he walked over to Marrow. She did, but only as an involuntary side effect of her confusion. Once Qrow was only a few feet from him, he—Marrow—spoke up, in a way that suggested he felt the need to explain himself.

"I-I didn't-" He started, before being cut off as Qrow embraced him in a hug. In raising Ruby and Yang he'd acquired sort of a comfort urge, and had had the impulse to do that for a while.

Marrow buried his face in Qrow's shoulder and returned the embrace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on tumblr @fandsart-rwby and @fandsart

**Author's Note:**

> I also make fanart and I'm on tumblr at fandsart-rwby


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